‘Oh, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves! You really should!’ came a voice from behind them. Mavra had glided in silently. ‘Look at old fat-face with his stupid grin! So this is what you get up to! And there’s work to be done down there. Vasilich is dead on his feet. Just you wait!’
Ignat stopped grinning, hitched up his belt and looked down at the floor as he walked out, humiliated.
‘Auntie, I was only having a little play . . .’ said the boy.
‘I’ll give you having a little play, you little horror!’ shouted Mavra, shaking her fist at him. ‘Go and put the samovar on for your grandad.’
Wiping some dust away, she closed the clavichord, gave a sigh and walked out of the drawing-room, shutting the door behind her. Back down in the yard Mavra wondered what to do next: go and have a drink of tea in the lodge with Vasilich, or pop down to the store-room and tidy up some of the things that still needed putting away.
From the quiet street came the sound of rapid footsteps. They paused at the gate, and the latch rattled as someone tried to open it.
Mavra went over.
‘Who do you want?’
‘The count, old Count Rostov.’
‘And who might you be?’
‘I’m an officer. I really would like to see him,’ said a cheery voice, the voice of a Russian gentleman.
Mavra opened the gate, and in walked a round-faced officer, a boy of eighteen, with features not unlike the Rostovs’.
‘They’ve gone away, sir. Went away last night, sir, their Honours did,’ said Mavra welcomingly. The young officer stood there in the gateway and clicked his tongue as he wondered whether to come on in or stay where he was.
‘Oh, how annoying!’ he said. ‘I should have come yesterday . . . Oh, what a pity!’
Mavra was watching him sympathetically as she took in the young man’s face with its familiar Rostov features, his tattered greatcoat and worn-out boots. ‘What was it you was wanting to see the count for?’ she asked.
‘Oh dear . . . Now what shall I do?’ the officer muttered in annoyance, reaching for the gate as if he intended to go away. Then he stopped again, still hesitating.
‘You see,’ he went on suddenly, ‘I’m related to the count, and he’s always been so good to me. You see how I am . . .’ (He looked down with a wry smile at his coat and boots.) ‘I’m in rags. I haven’t a penny to my name . . . I was just going to ask the count . . .’
Mavra cut him short.
‘If I could ask you to wait just a minute, sir. Only a minute,’ she said. And the moment his fingers dropped from the latch she was off, tripping round to her lodge in the back court on her nippy old lady’s legs.
As she trotted off on her errand, the officer walked round the courtyard, looking down at his tattered boots with a thin smile on his face.
‘What a pity I have missed Uncle Ilya! What a nice old lady! I wonder where she’s gone. And how can I find out the shortest way back to my regiment? By now they’ll be at the Rogozhsky gate . . .’ All these thoughts went through the young officer’s mind while she was away. Then Mavra came back round the corner looking scared but very determined; she was carrying something wrapped up in a check handkerchief. A few steps away from him she undid the handkerchief, took out a white twenty-five rouble note, and thrust it into the officer’s hand.
‘If his Excellency had been at home . . . I know he would have . . . well, er, blood’s thicker than water . . . but with things as they are . . . you might be able to, er . . .’ Mavra was squirming with shyness and embarrassment. The officer did not refuse; neither did he hurry to take the note. He thanked her. ‘If only the count had been here,’ murmured Mavra apologetically. ‘Christ be with you, sir. God keep you,’ she said, bowing to him and showing him the way out. The officer, smiling and shaking his head in what looked like self-mockery, jogged away down the empty streets to catch up with his regiment at the Yauza bridge.
Mavra’s eyes were moist as she stood there outside the closed gate for some time, shaking her head pensively and feeling a great flood of maternal affection and sympathy for the unknown boy officer.
CHAPTER 23
From a half-built house in Varvarka, where the ground floor served as a drinking-shop, came the sounds of drunken revelry and singing. A dozen factory workers were sitting on benches at tables in a dirty little room. Woozy with drink, sweating and bleary-eyed, they were belting out some kind of a song through gaping mouths. They were putting everything into it, singing their hearts out, completely out of tune, not because they really wanted to sing, but just to let the world know they were out on the town and getting gloriously drunk.
